Primary funding is provided by

The SPE Foundation through member donations

and a contribution from Offshore Europe

The Society is grateful to those companies that allow their

professionals to serve as lecturers

Additional support provided by AIME

Society of Petroleum Engineers

Distinguished Lecturer Program
www.spe.org/dl
1
 Listening to the Reservoir –
Interpreting Data from Permanent
Downhole Gauges
Roland N. Horne
Stanford University

Society of Petroleum Engineers

Distinguished Lecturer Program
www.spe.org/dl
Permanent Downhole Gauges (PDG)
• More than 10,000 installed
worldwide.

• Usually installed to monitor

downhole equipment.

• Data rarely applied for

reservoir analysis.

3
 Reservoir Engineering Uses
1. Reservoir pressure
2. Flowing bottomhole pressure management
3. Replacement for shut-in tests
4. Skin determination
5. Monitoring interference effects
6. Voidage control
7. Tubing hydraulics matching
8. Inflow performance modeling
9. Monitoring well treatments
10. History matching

4
Kragas, Turnbull and Francis (2004)
 Replacement of Shut-In Tests
• Northstar, Alaska
6 wells, 2 days duration
10,000 STB/d production would be lost per well

120,000 STB acceleration per campaign

650,000 STB acceleration over field life

And, $1.6 million avoided wireline costs

5
Kragas, Turnbull and Francis (2004)
 PDG-Specific Issues
1. Manipulation of huge volumes of data.
2. Deconvolution to see characteristic
behaviors.
3. Identification of break points, to separate
transients.
4. Changes (such as permeability and skin)
as a function of time.
5. Flow rate information.
6. Temperature measurements.
6
1. Manipulation & Processing of Data

• Data at 1 second frequency =

32 million data/year per gauge.
• Physical storage and access are a
challenge even for today’s databases.
• Access, retrieval and transfer are a
challenge even for today’s bandwidths.

7
Chorneyko (2006)
 1. Manipulation & Processing of Data
6000 a
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Pressure (psia)

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5800
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a
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aa
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Pressure
aaa
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Noise
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5500 Rate
0 100 200 300 400 500
Time (hour)

8
(Athichanagorn et al., 2002)
Denoising with Wavelets
Noisy signal

Denoised signal

9
(Athichanagorn et al., 2002)
Outlier Filtering with Wavelets
Outlier points
Acceptable points

10
(Athichanagorn et al., 2002)
 2. Deconvolution
t
∆pw (t ) = ∫ q' (τ ).∆p0 (t − τ ) dτ
pressure 0 flow constant pressure
reservoir model

• Theoretician’s playground, since 1949.

• Remained impractical until recently.
• Work of von Schroeter, Hollaender and
Gringarten (2004), using nonparametric
regression, p and q matching, derivative
restrictions and smoothness limit constraints.
11
 2. Deconvolution
2820 10000
45 hours of data, no transient longer than 5 hours
2800
8000

Flow rate, bbl/day

2780
Pressure, psi

events 6000
2760
4000
2740

5 hours 2000
2720

2700 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Time, hrs
12
Nomura (2006)
 2. Deconvolution
100 2820 10000

2800
8000

TRUE

Flow rate, bbl/day

2780

Pressure, psi
6000

case1
2760
4000
2740

case2
Pressure derivative, psi

2000
2720

2700
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
0
case3
Time, hrs

10

45 hour response, inferred from deconvolution

1
0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 45 100
Time, hrs
13
Nomura (2006)
 2. Deconvolution – Issues
• Model may change over time.
• Buildups and drawdowns may be different.
– Levitan (2005): shut-ins only
– Olsen & Nordvedt (2006): shut-ins only
• Strong dependence on break points.

14
3. Transient Identification – Break Points
Wavelet approach: Athichanagorn et al. (2002)
2810
2800
2790
2780
Pressure, psi

2770
2760
2750
2740
2730
2720
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Time, hrs
15
Nomura (2006)
3. Break Points and Deconvolution
100
Wavelet
Adjusted
TRUE
Pressure derivative

Inaccurate break points are fatal for deconvolution

10

1
0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10 100
Time, hrs
16
Nomura (2006)
3. Break Points and Rate Normalization

Inaccurate break points are also problematic for rate normalization

17
Houzé (2006)
 3. Break Points – Approaches
• Wavelets often used for ‘first round’.
• Khong (2001): statistical method.
• Rai (2005 and 2007):
– Savitzky-Golay smoothing filter
– Segmentation method
• Olsen & Nordvedt (2005): pattern matching
method.
• Nomura (2006): insertion and deletion.

18
 3. Break Points
case threshold initial insertion deletion
1 0.5 18 136 95
2 0.01 36 167 81
3 2 11 151 101
100

TRUE
case1
case2
Pressure derivative, psi

case3

10

1
0 .0 0 1 0 .0 1 0 .1 1 10 100
T im e , h rs 19
Nomura (2006)
4. Permeability and Skin Change in Time
• Constant property solution
• k(t)=constant , s(t)=constant

Real data
Data match, constant k and s

20
(Lee, 2003)
4. Permeability and Skin Change in Time
• Quadratic function for permeability
• k(t)= a(t-tL)2+kL , s(t)=s0 + b t

Real data
Data match, variable k and s

21
(Lee, 2003)
4. k and s Changes – Field Observations

• Khong (2001)
• Athichanagorn, Horne and Kikani (2002)
• Richardson, Roux, Quinn, Harker and Sides
(2002)
• Lee (2003)
• Haddad, Proano and Patel (2004)
• Coludrovich, McFadden, Palke, Roberts and
Robson (2004)
• Chorneyko (2006)
• Olsen and Nordtvedt (2006)
22
 4. k and s Changes
• de Oliviera and Kato (2004): “analytical
models used traditionally for
conventional well test interpretation may
be too simple to define the pressure and
flow rate transients that occur during the
extended duration of a permanent
downhole gauge record.”
• Using full-scale numerical models is
probably what we need, but not widely
applied (yet).
23
5. Downhole Flow Rate Gauges
• Both p and q contain measurement errors.
• Match both simultaneously.
1 r r 2 nc r r r
obj = d − p + λ ∑ Rr ( b ) + µ D a − q
2 2

2 r =1

• von Schroeter, Hollaender and Gringarten

(2004)
• Nomura (2009)
• Ahn and Horne (2008)
24
 5. Downhole Flow Rate Gauges

8910 8600
measured
8908 8400 iteration 1
Pressure (psia)

iteration 2
8200 iteration 3

Rate (STB/d)
8906
iteration 4
8000

Liquid rate [bbl/d]

8904
Pressure [psia]

7800
8902
7600
8900
7400
measured
8898
iteration 1 7200
iteration 2
8896 iteration 3 7000
iteration 4
8894 6800
450 500 550 600 650 450 500 550 600 650

Time (seconds)
Time (seconds)
Time (seconds)
Time (seconds)

25
Ahn (2008)
5. Downhole Flow Rate Gauges

Pressure

A B
Rate

p
q

A – flow event B – noise event

26
 6. Temperature Data

Temperature
responds
to flowrate
changes

Duru
27
(2008)
6. Temperature Data

Match temperature
history  porosity

28
Duru and Horne (2008)
 Concluding Remarks (1)
• Permanent downhole gauges are rich
sources of reservoir data.
• Not just more, but better!
• Good progress on:
– Noise and outlier removal
– Break point identification
– Deconvolution
– Combining rate data
– Utilizing temperature data
• But, more work to do!
29
 Concluding Remarks (2)
• The ultimate goal is to achieve a high
degree of automation.
• Nobody wants to look at 100 million data
points!
• Eventual inclusion in SmartFields
procedures.

30
 Acknowledgements
• Members of the SUPRI-D research consortium
on innovation in reservoir testing.
• SUPRI-D graduates:
– Athichanagorn (1999)
– Khong (2001)
– Lee (2003)
– Rai (2005)
– Nomura (2006)
– Duru (2008)
– Ahn (2008)
31
SPE Distinguished Lecturer Program

The SPE Distinguished Lecturer Program is funded principally

through a grant from the SPE Foundation.

The society gratefully acknowledges the companies that support

this program by allowing their professionals to participate as
lecturers.

Special thanks to the American Institute of

Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum
Engineers (AIME) for its contribution to
the program.

Society of Petroleum Engineers

Distinguished Lecturer Program
www.spe.org/dl
32
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